Metals Australia Ltd (ASX: MLS) is pleased to announce the results of its Phase 1 mapping and sampling program on its Corvette River Project1. The program focused on three separate target areas within the broad tenement package, covering over 22km of strike length of the highly prospective Lac Guyer Greenstone Belt, located north and south of the Corvette River in northern Quebec (Figure 1).
The Phase 1 sampling program focussed on three key prospects: Felicie on the Corvette Lithium Trend, which hosts Patriot Battery Metals’ world-class Corvette Lithium Project2, and the West Eade and East Eade claims on the parallel Corvette South Trend (see Figure 1).
The program included mapping and extensive rockchip and channel sampling in areas of previous high-grade gold samples found at West Eade and East Eade, as well as follow up of previous high-grade gold-silver-copper results at the Felicie property. Significant results obtained for each of the key target areas are as follows:
Felicie Project – New results from the western zone of Felicie included trench sample assays grading up to 3.85g/t gold (Au), 19.8g/t Silver (Ag), 0.14% Copper (Cu), 0.84% Zinc (Zn), 0.5% lead (Pb). These results validate historical rock chip sample results that included grades of up to 4.2 g/t Au, 44.1 g/t Ag, 0.23% Cu, 1.39% Pb and 1.25% Zn3, hosted by a northeast trending shear zone mapped for approximately 200m and open to the NE and SW (see Figure 2, Images 1-4)4.West Eade Project – New results grading up to 4.42g/t gold were obtained from rock chip samples, validating gold results from prior programs which have included 11.45 g/t & 8.56 g/t Au (2005), 3.37 g/t Au (2019) & 2.56 g/t Au and 5.5 g/t Au (2020)3. Gold mineralisation has been demonstrated over an east-west trending corridor of over 1000m within a strongly folded and faulted banded iron formation (BIF) up to 300m in width and 2,000 m in length. (see Figure 3, Images 5-8).East Eade Project – Trench sample assays revealed broad mineralisation grading >0.3 g/t Au, including 1m @ 0.83 g/t Au associated with quartz veins and up to 15% sulphides within a folded and faulted BIF outcrop. This outcropping mineralised zone extends for >400m, is open to the east and west, and appears to be the source of previous high-grade rock chip samples of outcropping boulders grading 29.7 g/t Au3 and 12 g/t Au3, 160m to the east (See Figure 4, Images 9 – 14).
The new results and extensive field mapping have significantly enhanced focus areas for a Phase 2 program. Planning is underway for an exploration program aimed at further defining and extending the mineralised corridors, including pinpointing priority drilling positions for later work.
Metals Australia CEO Paul Ferguson commented:
“The results we have received from our first phase exploration program at our Corvette River project in Quebec are extremely encouraging, confirming three emerging gold discoveries at our Felicie, West-Eade and East-Eade prospects.
Our sampling program has successfully extended the mineralised zone at Felicie, with the new results validating historical data by demonstrating a broad zone of extensive mineralisation which will now be prioritised for follow-up exploration. While the near-surface gold results are significant, silver, copper, lead and zinc are also consistently present with the gold at highly anomalous levels.
The two Eade prospects cover a combined strike length of over 20km. The program was focused on mapping and trenching to extend areas near historical mineralisation. Focus in West Eade was on a Banded Iron stone (BIF) unit over 2km long which hosts disseminated sulphides that had yielded gold results previously. The program extended those results with a best result of 4.42 g/t gold. We are now seeing good mineralisation across approximately 1km of surface strike length extent. These results also warrant further work in this area.
East Eade also contains a large, banded iron formation of over 3.6km strike-length trending east- west. Gold had been found in veins within the BIF unit previously. Numerous channel and rock chip samples in our program yielded gold results up to 0.83g/t within an over 10m wide mineralised zone. Significantly, a large outcrop ridge was identified of sheared, folded and faulted silicate, oxide and sulphide facies within the BIF that also supports further investigation.
The results further underline the prospectivity of the three zones tested for gold, silver and base metals. All three areas warrant more detailed investigation, and our team is working closely with the local Magnor Exploration team on defining next steps for a follow-up program, including further systematic trenching and targeted sampling.
The Corvette River results also demonstrate the value our work programs are generating across our suite of projects in known mineralised zones in Canada and Australia. Our short to near term pipeline of news flow remains strong, with Warambie drilling samples now in the laboratory, drilling at Big Bell North project set to commence this month and Warrego East in the Northern Territory also approaching drill-ready status. Our flagship Lac Carheil project continues to develop as one of the leading graphite projects in North America today, with excellent progress being made across key studies to advance it towards prefeasibility.
Few companies our size have such a portfolio of high-quality projects and even fewer have the technical and financial capability to progress them as we are doing. This places us in an enviable position to be able to unlock significant value from multiple parallel workstreams in the near term.“
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